Yorkshire Dialect Poems (1673-1915) and traditional poems

Singing Games

     Traditional

                 I

     Stepping up the green grass
        Thus and thus and thus;
     Will you let one of your fair maids
        Come and play with us.

     We will give you pots and pans,
        We will give you brass;
     We will give you anything
        For a pretty lass.

     We won't take your pots and pans,
        We won't take your brass,
     We won't take your "anything
        For a pretty lass."

     We will give you gold and silver,
        We will give you pearl;
     We will give you anything
        For a pretty girl.

     Come, my dearest Mary,
        Come and play with us;
     You shall have a young man
        Born for your sake.
     And the bells shall ring,
        And the cats shall sing,
     And we'll all clap hands together.

            II

     Sally made a pudden,
        Shoo made it ower sweet;
     Shoo dursn't stick a knife in 't,
        Till Jack cam home at neet.

     John, wilta have a bit like?
        Don't say nay,
     For last Monday mornin'
        Was aar weddin'-day.

            III

     Sally Water, Sally Water,
        Come sprinkle your can,
     Why do you lie mournin'
        All for a young man?
     Come, choose o' the wisest,
        Come, choose o' the best,
     Come, choose o' the young men
        The one you love best.

            IV

           Diller a dollar,
           A ten o' clock scholar,
        What maks you coom sae soon?
     You used to coom at ten o'clock,
        Bud noo you coom at noon.

     1. From S. O. Addy, A Sheffield Glossary, p. 239;
     current in other parts of England.